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Augustine: Sinner and Saint. A New Biography by J. O'DonnellReview by: Gillian ClarkThe Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 96 (2006), pp. 304-305Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20430558 .

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304

REVIEWS

J. O DONNELL,

AUGUSTINE: SINNER

AND SAINT. A NEW

BIOGRAPHY. London:

Profile

Books,

zoo5.

Pp.

xiv

+

396,

i

map.

ISBN

i-86197-686-0.

?25.oo.

How has

the

Provost

of

Georgetown University

(Washington, DC)

found time to write a

big

book

about Augustine?

The answers

include

characteristics he shares with

his

subject.

He

is a

pro

ductive and forceful

writer.

He has

technical support,

now

updated

from notarii to

web techni

cians.

He can

draw

on

decades of

research

and

publication,

including

his

admired

commentary

on

Confessions

(I992,

now on

line). Perhaps also,

like

Augustine

embarking

on

City

of God,

he

had

reason to think that his

big book

was

needed:

Georgetown

is near aWhite

House

where Christian

values are confidently invoked.

Like

Augustine,

O Donnell

requires

his audience

to

consider

what

they take for granted:

about

Augustine, about

biography,

about the

continuity

of

Christian

texts

and doctrines and churches.

He

insistently

reminds them that

it

might

have

been

otherwise;

it

has

been

otherwise.

In

the late fourth

and

early

fifth

centuries,

Christian

beliefs and

practices

were at

least

as

diverse

as

they

are now.

It was

not

obvious

that

Christianity

would

endure,

as a

major

world

religion,

for

(so

far)

another sixteen hundred

years;

or

that

Augustine

of

Hippo, bishop

of

the

minority church

in

a

second-rank

African

diocese,

would

still

be revered

or

attacked

as

Saint

Augustine,

Doctor

of

the

Church and

a

major

influence

on Western

theology.

Historians of Late Antiquity are over the shock of seeing Augustine as an undistinguished

figure

in his

time,

but this

book

is

designed

to

reach

beyond

the

academic

world,

like

Augustine

preaching

to an

unpredictable

audience. O D. s

books

include Avatars

of

the

Word:

from

Papyrus

to

Cyberspace

(i998)

on

the effect of

changes

in

information

technology,

and he has

long

experience of

university teaching

and of

internet

queries.

For academic

readers,

there

are

new

perceptions and

provocations,

and

the

endnotes

are

right

up

to

date.

(Why

do

so

many

American

publishers

omit

bibliographies?)

For

general readers,

everything

is

translated,

the

style

is

easy

going, and there

are

modern

analogies,

some

of which

do

not

easily

cross the

Atlantic.

O D.

expects

(34)

that

most

of

his

readers

will

be

aware

of

Confessions

(a

review

by

someone

who

was

not

would be really interesting) and

reminds

them

not to let

Confessions

persuade

them

that

they

know Augustine. What

they

know

is

what Augustine

wrote,

and

Augustine helped the books

survive

by listing

them

with

notes

in

his Retractationes.

O D.

sees

this brief work

as

the second

Confessions: not because it provides the framework for narratives of Augustine s later life, but

because

it

constructs that

life,

this

time

as a

sequence

of

books

in

response

to

requests

or needs.

Retractationes replaced the

living, breathing, quarrelling

cleric with

Augustine the

author

(3I9),

and O D. will not

let

that

happen.

So

what kind of

new

biography

comes

from

an

expert

who

is

so

wary

of

Augustine s cunning traps (3I7)

and so aware of how he himself

approaches

his

subject

and

how

his

readers

might

react?

In the Festschrift for Robert Markus

(W.

Klingshirn

and

M.

Vessey (eds),

The Limits

of

Ancient

Christianity (i999)),

O D.

addressed

The

Next

Life

of

Augustine

(215-3I),

the

putative

successor

to

Peter Brown s

brilliantly

influential

Augustine

of Hippo (1967,

rev. edn

zooo).

He

questioned

the

powerful

attraction

that

pulls

writers

the

present

one included

-

to

the

coherent

narrative of a

single

life

(222)

and

considered

ways

of

replacing

the

conversion

story

that

Augustine

constructed

in

Confessions

with

multiple Augustines

more

appropriate

to an

electronic

age

of

continuing dialogue.

Print

is

necessarily

more

fixed,

but

Augustine:

Sinner and

Saint is

multiple

both

in its

Augustines

and

in

its assessments. O D.

imagines (8o-i)

what

Augustine s reputation

might

have been if

Confessions

had

not survived the centuries inwhich

it

was

scarcely

read.

He reflects

on

Augustine

the

Manichaean,

and

devises

(5I-z)

a

Donatist

dismis

sal

of

Augustine

who

lacked

the

moral

strength

for

more

austere

traditions,

and who

manoeuvred

among politicians

to advance

the

minority

Caecilianist church.

Instead of

Augustine

the

pioneer

monk,

O D.

offers

Augustine

the

gentleman,

who lives

simply

but

comfortably

and

finds,

as

life

goes on,

that his

religious

beliefs

fit

his

Roman conservatism.

All

these

Augustines

live

among

scenes

from

late

antique

life

presented

with relaxed

enjoyment:

for

instance,

Sunday

sermons at

Hippo, Jerome

taking offence,

the

endless

preliminary

negotiations

in

the

Donatist

peace process.

Some

historians would settle for

explaining

how

Augustine

makes sense

in

that

context,

how

he

does

exegesis

like

a

grammaticus

and

theology

like

a

Platonist and

polemic

like

an orator.

But

then

Augustine

would be

safely historicized; instead,

O D.

wants readers to

consider

the

strange

ness of his beliefs

about

humanity, God,

and

scripture.

Augustine

assumes that

he

is

body

and soul: so what is his soul like

(82-3),

and how

acceptable

or

intelligible

are

any

of his beliefs about

it?

The

chapter

on

Augustine

the

Theologians

(no

mis

print) offers

vigorous

disagreement

with

Augustine s

interpretation

of

his own

and

of every

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IV. LATE

ROMAN HISTORY AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY 305

human life

in

relation to God. The earlier chapter on Augustine and the Invention of

Christianity begins

(I71)

with

a

counterfactual encyclopedia entry

on

the defunct religion

of

Glunchism (any relation to

the Grinch who stole Christmas?), a renegade Jewish sect that became

too dependent on

the Roman state. Augustine the Glunchist

is

the starting-point for a sustained

effort to defamiliarize Augustine s religion, culminating (204) in an evocation of Don Quixote of

Hippo . This Augustine went to war

with phantasms because

he

took

a peculiar set

of

texts

for

fact, and

was

supported by

a

community

of

obsessives (zo6) who bought, and still buy,

into some

oddly

persistent stories.

But

O D.

will

not

allow Augustine

to

be sidelined that way either: he

interrupts himself (zo6) to

challenge such judgements.

Much

of

the book is about power

struggles and needless polemic, theological failure (especially

in response to Pelagius

and

to

Julian of Eclanum), and

disastrous success. By the end

of his life

(323), Augustine is to blame

for

the

Vandal

invasions,

because

a

political ally invited them, and

for the

collapse

of African

Christianity,

because the

putsch

he

masterminded

for

his church

(ch.

8) weakened the

native

tradition. Augustine s

religion

is

joyless

and

jokeless

(zoz:

but what

would

a

liturgical joke

be

like?), and loneliness

and

anxiety drive

his

unnecessary quarrels. Early

in

the

book O D. observes what

were

temptations

to

Augustine

become life

goals when moderns

think

of

them

as

self-esteem, education,

and sexual fulfilment

(66).

Does

the

saint s

voice

murmur

My

point

exactly ?

Augustine

wanted,

he

said, something

more

than

worldly

success

and sexual fulfil

ment; he

thought

it

was love of

God,

and

in

his

experience,

indiscriminate

curiosity (all

over

the

place)

and

pride

in

oneself

(shutting

out

others)

were

especially likely

to

get

in

the

way. Whether

he needed

therapy or the

grace of

God

is,

to borrow one

of his

not

now phrases, another

question requiring

long

discussion. O D. s answer is

clear,

but

he

also reminds

readers (3z6)

that

Augustine

wanted

them to

amend

their

own

lives,

not

speculate

about his.

In

the final

chapters

especially,

the

sceptical, provocative,

sometimes

dismissive

tone

is

balanced both

by

affection

( by

now

he s learned

to

put

up with me ,

375)

and

by generous praise

for the

quality

of

Augustine s

writing (307, 309)

and

the

importance

of

the

questions

he asked. The book

remains

multiple and

fascinating.

Was

there

a core

self

in

this bundle

of

Augustines? Augustine

would have said that

God alone

knows.

Universityof Bristol GILLIAN LARK

A. MIRKOVIC,

PRELUDE TO CONSTANTINE:

THE ABGAR

TRADITION IN EARLY

CHRISTIANITY

(Arbeiten

zur

Religion

und Geschichte des

Urchristentums; Studies in the

Religion and History

of Early Christianity i5). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004. Pp. xv

+

i8z. ISBN

-8zo4-6585-z.

?z6.oo.

Alexander Mirkovic s

revision

of

his

zooz

Vanderbilt University dissertation

explores

the

legend

of Abgar of Edessa, the royal

correspondent

to

Jesus who

was

converted

by

one of

his

disciples.

M. s approach

is

not pathbreaking (he postulates that the legend contains many layers, many of

which reflect

different

social and historical circumstances

(8)),

but it isworthwhile. As he

points

out, scholars

have read this

legend (preserved

in

Eusebius Historia

Ecclesiastica (HE)

and the

fifth-century Syriac

Teaching of

Addai

(TA))

either

as

part

of

Eusebius

efforts

to

glorify

his

new

imperial patron, Constantine, or (following Walter Bauer and Han Drijvers) as orthodox propa

ganda designed

to

deflate the majority heretics

of

fourth-century

Edessa.

M.

instead reads

the

legend as one of several comparable court tales , articulating a minority group s desires and

anxieties about religion

and

power and,

in the

case

of

the

Abgar

legend, ultimately transforming

the

role of

religious leaders

in Roman

politics and patronage.

Ch. i,

on

the history

and

historiography

of

the

Abgar legend

(i-i6),

lays

out

M. s

reliance

on

Sebastian Brock s i992 essay

on the common source

(an

Early

Syriac Version )

used

by

both

Eusebius and the

pseudonymous author

of

the

TA

(whom

M. insists

throughout

on

calling

Labubna ).

M.

provides a

synoptic translation of the Abgar portions of the

HE

and

TA

(9-I4;

he

does

not

divulge the source

of these translations, which

are

rife with spelling

errors).

Ch.

z

(I7-6i) reconstructs

the

stages of

the

legend s circulation,

from

a

third-century oral

tradition

to

the

final

redaction

of

Labubna

in

the

fifth

century.

M.

incorporates

as

evidence Egeria, who

heard the story

in

the 380s

from

the

Bishop

of Edessa

and acquired

copies of the

Jesus-Abgar

cor

respondence. M. views Egeria as a witness to the oral circulation of the legend, although Egeria s

mention

of her

sisters written

translation

of

this

text

(It. Eg. i9.i9) surely

indicates that the

legend was already

circulating

in

Latin

in

theWest well before Egeria heard the story in Edessa.

M. concludes

that

the redactions

of

the

TA

show

that

one of

its

main

goals

is to link the church

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